January 5, 2004
(Computerworld)
Tight budgets and heavy workloads haven't extinguished creativity in these IT departments. It's being sparked anew among IT leaders by their very best resource – their staffs.
With a limited budget in 2000 for Microsoft MCSE certification and 20 networking staffers to train, Miami-Dade County CIO Judi Zito took a chance on a proposal she hoped would fly with an IT staff that is passionate about technology.
Because the county couldn't afford to send everyone to class at once, Zito asked her team if they would be willing to take the training at night, after work. Their reaction? "They jumped at it," recalls Zito.
That willingness to give up personal time in a quest for learning is a sign of the importance that IT professionals continue to place on technical training. While many IT shops have had to endure three straight years of cost-cutting and, at best, marginal pay raises, savvy IT executives have learned to get creative about keeping enthusiasm running high. Their advice? Target the two things that motivate IT people most: technology and training.
Encourage Cross-Training
Like other technology companies that have been ravaged by lower IT spending, Palm Inc. in Milpitas, Calif., has had to make deep staff cuts throughout the organization – including IT. Palm has endured five rounds of layoffs over the past two years, slashing its IT staff from 168 to 57.
The upside, says Vice President and CIO Marina Levinson, is that the workforce consolidation has created new opportunities for the remaining IT workers. "On the business application side, we've invested quite a bit to cross-train our people and provide them various training opportunities for new skills and give them new functional experience," she says.
Each quarter, Levinson and her lieutenants evaluate the technology skills of Palm's IT staff and then offer employees a chance to train in areas where there are knowledge gaps. As part of the staff consolidation, Palm merged its ERP, CRM and data warehousing teams and allowed people to cross-train in those disciplines, says Levinson.
Zito has taken similar steps to keep Miami-Dade's 600 core IT staffers engaged. For instance, she makes sure that all IT employees get a chance to work on new projects – albeit sometimes on a part-time basis.
The approach, says Zito, "allows people to progress professionally, and that's been very well received."
It's a trend that seems to be catching on. Many IT departments have been shedding contractors and consultants and giving a growing proportion of work to internal IT workers, notes John Parkinson, chief technologist for the Americas region at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young U.S. LLC in Chicago. The approach "has been somewhat of a morale booster, allowing IT people to work on new projects rather than hack away at the old stuff," he says.
Help Develop Careers
Robert Wischnowsky, chief technology officer and managing director of global technology systems at FleetBoston Financial Corp. in Providence, R.I., recognizes the importance of keeping his 1,100 staffers motivated during tough times. "When the market comes back," he says, "these top individuals can go anywhere for jobs."
Wischnowsky has taken steps to help foster the career development of the bank's IT staff. FleetBoston is currently piloting an online workforce development system where IT workers can view which requirements must be met to be promoted to the next job grade, such as training and certifications.
In addition, Wischnowsky spearheaded a front-line management training program for newbie managers. "A lot of people get promoted into management roles because of their technical capabilities, but there hasn't been enough done in our industry to give them management training," he says.
One of the more innovative programs Wischnowsky launched last year was a leadership development class that's aimed at helping technologists "change their behaviors" and take different approaches to problem-solving. Wischnowsky met with the group of 10 staff members each month and gave them additional assignments – books to read and organizational exercises to carry out with fellow staffers. Topics included interpersonal skills, workplace diversity and respecting different points of view.
Five months after the program finished last spring, Wischnowsky held a reunion with the class. Says Wischnowsky, "They're still applying some of the things they learned, mostly from each other."
Good managers know that it takes meticulous follow-through to ensure that good ideas become reality.
For some IT leaders, like Kamal Narang, it starts with creating a culture that puts workers at ease about pitching suggestions. "I personally like to treat my employees as colleagues, and that helps make them comfortable in presenting these ideas," says Narang, chief technical officer at Capital Technology Information Services Inc., a Rockville, Md.-based systems integrator.
If it's a new project idea, Schneider National Inc.'s Robert Grawien will make sure the idea is debated both by IT and business unit managers at project review meetings, "regardless of the source," says the vice president of application development at the Green Bay, Wis.-based trucking firm.
If someone in the IT department at Miami-Dade County has a worthy idea, "we'll authorize a pilot for it," says CIO Judi Zito. She points to an assistant IT director for the county who suggested putting more legacy-bound information online through a Web services approach, such as making property data accessible to both the building and police departments. The idea was well received, and a pilot was launched about six months ago, says Zito.